Smart garbage now

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided to install GPS in all its 500 garbage trucks to track their movement and ensure they do their job. The process of installation will begin in three months. Each chip will cost about Rs 15,000,’’ said MCD commissioner Rakesh Mehta. The GPS-based ‘‘automatic vehicle track system’’ will beam the movement of the smart garbage trucks in a hi-tech control room that will have a big screen with 500 moving red lights, each depicting a truck. This futuristic control room will not be housed in the British-period Town Hall. Right now there is hardly any monitoring of movement of garbage trucks. But with these system, MCD will come to know if the trucks are visiting the garbage dumps everyday and depositing garbage in land fill sites. According to rough estimates, the city generates about 7,000 tonnes of solid waste everyday. Sources said only about 70 per cent of the city’s garbage is collected and that is just dumped in the three-landfill sites (LFS) in the city at Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla. These sites are close to saturation point. “Apart from tracking movement, the chips will also show the weight of garbage being carried in it. That way we can get a scientific idea of the amount of garbage generated daily. It will help us give an idea about the city’s future LFS requirements,’’ Mehta said. MCD has pinned its hopes on the GPS after several other city agencies have gained from it.